Sorry Brad, the wires should have been balled up inside the box and those plates should have been safely tucked away during the drywalling. Just like you shouldn't have any switches or receptacles in place until after the drywalling. The outside of the box is the rotozip guide and anything sticking outside is a PIA.

Oh yeah, I definitely should have known better, and listened to that little voice telling me it was a stupid move. Oh well, if I can't jury rig it, $17.60 at monoprice to replace it, not a huge deal. Better to save the screw ups for the little items.

I did the right thing for every outlet except these. Just my own laziness to blame.

(moved the contents of the first post to here, so I can keep updating the first post with a high level overview of what the current plan / stage of construction is, and TOC, etc.)

I had some questions that I thought I'd put here rather than creating a lot of separate posts.

If given a choice for rear surrounds being in the rear corners (or close to it), but at or near ear level; or mounting them higher up (above the door), above ear level - which would be preferable? I'm leaning towards the corners, perhaps building into corner columns that double as bass absorbers.

Given that the room is inside a separate structure (not attached to the house) - how important is having the riser and stage decoupled from the wall framing? The framers want to tie it into the framing before drywalling.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts...

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Bump (I guess I really need to add some pictures, changing the title didn't get any attention ;-)

My current plan is to have all the equipment hidden in the closet - but waffling on whether I should maybe have the front of the rack poke through an opening into the room (with access to the back of the rack from the closet). What would you do?
.

I would leave it how you planned, even though I prefer it sticking through.
If the equipment hall went towards the back of the room it would look great poking through. Too close to the front might cause a distraction.
Just my $.02
-Jeff

I would leave it how you planned, even though I prefer it sticking through.
If the equipment hall went towards the back of the room it would look great poking through. Too close to the front might cause a distraction.
Just my $.02
-Jeff

Personally I like for the equipment to be visible, specially now a days that most equipment with lights or screens can be either dimed down or turned off.

Now noise is another consideration if you have amplifiers with fans or an older PS3 that if it gets hot competes with the now no longer flying Concord jet for decibels.

Pretty much decided that I'll be poking the rack through the wall, and will have it hidden behind a hinged matching wall panel (something like GPowers). Since the closet is fairly narrow, I don't think it would make access to the wiring very practical. Thanks for the feedback guys. Of course, I may change my mind tomorrow...

So what are you going to use for ac? You were thinking mini splits. I installed 4 last week, they do the job and don't make much sound

Its between the LG Art Cool and the Mitsubishi Mr Slim mini split for me - the former looks nicer and up to the 12K BTU model can run on 110v, which is a plus since its already wired to the location for 110v; the latter not quite as nice looking, but apparently a bit quieter, and I'd have to run a 220v line to the location, and add a bridged breaker, but not the end of the world.

Its between the LG Art Cool and the Mitsubishi Mr Slim mini split for me - the former looks nicer and up to the 12K BTU model can run on 110v, which is a plus since its already wired to the location for 110v; the latter not quite as nice looking, but apparently a bit quieter, and I'd have to run a 220v line to the location, and add a bridged breaker, but not the end of the world.

Which model(s) did you install?

2 ton ceiling hung Mr Slim, but I have installed 10 or 12 of the smaller wall hung Mr Slim units in the past

Its between the LG Art Cool and the Mitsubishi Mr Slim mini split for me - the former looks nicer and up to the 12K BTU model can run on 110v, which is a plus since its already wired to the location for 110v; the latter not quite as nice looking, but apparently a bit quieter, and I'd have to run a 220v line to the location, and add a bridged breaker, but not the end of the world.

Which model(s) did you install?

I know you need air circulation in the room Brad ... but c'mon, its ethernally 74 degrees there, no A/C needed

Placed my order for 7x 13175 Berklines in black today, so I'm all in! Room won't be ready for them for a while, but didn't want to miss the Power Buy.

Wasted a bunch of time at Home Depot / Lowes yesterday - one of those days:

- Drive to Home Depot, thinking of picking up supplies for framing soffit - realize there's no way I'm going to fit 50 2x3s in my dinky car (Mini Cooper Clubman)
- go back home, thinking wife will be home with SUV, and I can use that
- she gets home in a rent a car, took the SUV in for brake repair
- drive back to HD, thinking I'll rent one of their pickups to bring stuff home; pick out 50 decent 2x3s from the stack, box of nails, box of screws; go to service desk - "both trucks are out, we don't know when they'll be back"
- drive across the street to Lowes, verify their truck is available, pick through their lumber for 15 minutes before coming to the conclusion that its 90% crap
- rent truck at Lowes to pick up the stuff I picked out at HD - fortunately they didn't put it all back while I was gone

Oh well, I guess sort of par for the course for home improvement stores.

Still scratching my head re: how exactly to frame the soffits - esp the ones that run parallel to the ceiling joists...

Placed my order for 7x 13175 Berklines in black today, so I'm all in! Room won't be ready for them for a while, but didn't want to miss the Power Buy.

Wasted a bunch of time at Home Depot / Lowes yesterday - one of those days:

- Drive to Home Depot, thinking of picking up supplies for framing soffit - realize there's no way I'm going to fit 50 2x3s in my dinky car (Mini Cooper Clubman)
- go back home, thinking wife will be home with SUV, and I can use that
- she gets home in a rent a car, took the SUV in for brake repair
- drive back to HD, thinking I'll rent one of their pickups to bring stuff home; pick out 50 decent 2x3s from the stack, box of nails, box of screws; go to service desk - "both trucks are out, we don't know when they'll be back"
- drive across the street to Lowes, verify their truck is available, pick through their lumber for 15 minutes before coming to the conclusion that its 90% crap
- rent truck at Lowes to pick up the stuff I picked out at HD - fortunately they didn't put it all back while I was gone

Oh well, I guess sort of par for the course for home improvement stores.

Still scratching my head re: how exactly to frame the soffits - esp the ones that run parallel to the ceiling joists...

- Drive to Home Depot, thinking of picking up supplies for framing soffit - realize there's no way I'm going to fit 50 2x3s in my dinky car (Mini Cooper Clubman)
- go back home, thinking wife will be home with SUV, and I can use that
- she gets home in a rent a car, took the SUV in for brake repair
- drive back to HD, thinking I'll rent one of their pickups to bring stuff home; pick out 50 decent 2x3s from the stack, box of nails, box of screws; go to service desk - "both trucks are out, we don't know when they'll be back"
- drive across the street to Lowes, verify their truck is available, pick through their lumber for 15 minutes before coming to the conclusion that its 90% crap
- rent truck at Lowes to pick up the stuff I picked out at HD - fortunately they didn't put it all back while I was gone

Stuff like this is why I bought a $500 minivan before I started my HT project.

FWIW, around here I've found that Lowes seems to have better wood than HD.

Still scratching my head re: how exactly to frame the soffits - esp the ones that run parallel to the ceiling joists...

I would have put OSB (or similar) under the drywall in the areas where you were planning to put soffits later so you could just screw into it without having to worry about hitting the joists. That's my plan for the columns in my HT. I plan to attach OSB flush with the studs (between them) behind the drywall so I can fasten the columns exactly where I want them to go without worrying about having to hit studs.

Haha yeah, I've been tempted to just buy a crappy pickup and sell it later - but then I think of insurance, and $20 rental sounds not so bad anymore.

Insurance on mine is ~$150 every 6 months. And, I think of all the times I've used it already and how many $20 rentals I'd need (and they're never short enough to only be $20 either). Since my HT is all DIY it makes sense as I've made a lot of trips to stores in the van already and I'm only getting started.

I think part of the problem is that lots of people rent the trucks for things that have nothing to do with buying something from the respective store. Heck, I've seen people at Costco loading furniture into / onto them.

Best time to get text books is at the end of the semester. If you know what class you're gonna take, and can get the professors to tell you which book they're gonna use, sometimes you can get books as much as 1/3 the cost. Amazon, etc. raises the prices around the start of the semester. Personally, I always procrastinate, but my office mate does this every semester.